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Directors: Chuck Jones & Abe Levitow
Release Date: January 10, 1959
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘Baton Bunny’ is the last of Chuck Jones’s great tributes to classical music, following ‘Long-Haired Hare‘ (1949), ‘Rabbit of Seville‘ (1950) and ‘What’s Opera, doc?‘ (1957).
The short also forms the closing chapter on a long tradition of concert cartoons with cartoon stars conducting, which goes all the way back to the Mickey Mouse short ‘The Barnyard Concert‘ from 1930. True, ‘Baton Bunny’ is not the last of such cartoons (it was e.g. followed by MGM’s ‘Carmen Get It (1962) starring Tom & Jerry, and ‘Pink, Plunk, Plink‘ (1966) starring the Pink Panther), but these cartoons are hardly the classics ‘Baton Bunny’ certainly is.
Bugs Bunny is the sole performer in the cartoon – we don’t even see the orchestra members, only their instruments. Bugs Bunny and the orchestra play Franz von Suppés overture ‘Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna’ (1844), which Bugs conducts not only with his hands, but also with his ears and feet. Like earlier conductors Mickey (‘The Band Concert‘, 1935) and Tom (‘Tom & Jerry at the Hollywood Bowl‘, 1950) Bugs has some troubles while conducting: with a fly, echoing Mickey’s problems with a bee in ‘The Band Concert’, and with his collar and cuffs, echoing Mickey’s problems with his over-sized costume. Highlight is Bugs’ reenactment of a Western pursuit featuring a cowboy, an Indian and the cavalry, only using his ears to change into each character.
But throughout the cartoon Bugs is beautifully animated, with strong expressions, and deft hand movements. It’s a sheer pity that in the end, the fly turns out to be Bugs’ only audience. But Bugs is not too proud to bow for the tiny creature that had troubled him so much just before. Apart from the animation and Michael Maltese’s entertaining story, ‘Baton Bunny’ profits from Maurice Noble’s beautiful background art, and great staging. Thus the short is a wonderful testimony of Warner Bros. cartoon art of the late fifties.
Watch ‘Baton Bunny’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 140
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Pre-hysterical Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare-Abian Nights
‘Baton Bunny’ is available on the DVD-box ‘The Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1″
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: December 6, 1941
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
‘Rhapsody in Rivets’ without doubt is one of Friz Freleng’s finest films. The very idea of turning a building site into a symphony orchestra with the foreman as a conductor is marvelous.
The execution, too, is superb. Using Franz Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody, Freleng presents a string of clever sight gags, perfectly timed to the music. When the foreman enters the stage, an audience applauds. The foreman uses his blueprint as sheet music. We watch a cement mixer mixing as if it were a cocktail shaker, and a brick layer frantically building a wall to the fast music. While performing, the workers really do build a skyscraper (with some twists and turns), until a Droopy-like dog destroys it all.
Liszt’s composition had been a staple since the advent of sound in cartoons. For example it had been used in the Mickey Mouse cartoons ‘The Opry House‘ (1929) and ‘The Mechanical Man‘ (1933) and the Betty Boop cartoon ‘Betty in Blunderland‘ (1934). But Freleng was the first to devote an entire cartoon to the composition. With this move Freleng made his own mini-Fantasia. The short uses no dialogue, whatsoever, and is a prime example of Freleng’s famous musical timing. In 1942 the film was rightfully nominated for an Academy Award. Freleng would return to Liszt’s rhapsody several times, most notably in ‘Rhapsody Rabbit‘ (1946) and ‘Back Alley Uproar‘ (1948).
Watch ‘Rhapsody in Rivets’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Rhapsody in Rivets’ is available on the DVD ‘Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Award-Nominated Animation: Cinema Favorites’
Directors: John Foster & George Rufle
Release Date: November 11, 1932
Stars: Tom and Jerry
Rating: ★★★½
Review
‘Piano Tooners’ opens with Tom and Jerry performing the 1920 hit song ‘Margie’ in their piano shop, which is simply filled with mice. We also watch them tuning pianos, with the best gag being Jerry flushing a bad note through the toilet.
Suddenly we cut to a concert hall, where one Mlle. Pflop will perform. She appears to be a fat woman, and some of the lesser refined humor in this cartoon stems from watching her getting dressed, in rather risque scenes. At the concert Mll. Pflop sings and plays the piano at the same time, until she hits a flat note. Piano tuners Tom and Jerry come to the rescue, pulling the bad key from the piano as if it were a sore tooth. Tom immediately starts playing ‘Doin’ The New Low-Down’, a song Don Redman would turn into a hit (featuring Cab Calloway and the Mills Brothers) more than a month after the release of ‘Piano Tooners’. Also featured is a maid, who is most probably a caricature, but of whom? She joins in, singing along, but it’s Mlle. Pflop who has the last note.
Like the other Tom and Jerry cartoons, ‘Piano Tooners’ is hopelessly primitive, featuring erratic designs and bad animation. However, the piano tuning gags are entertaining, and it’s hard not to enjoy the short’s weird atmosphere.
Watch ‘Piano Tooners’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 17
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: A Spanish Twist
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Pencil Mania
‘Piano Tooners’ is available on the DVD ‘The Complete Animated Adventures of Van Beuren Studio’s Tom and Jerry’
Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: August 7, 1931
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, Pluto?
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
‘Blue Rhythm’ is a genuine concert cartoon, in the vain of ‘The Opry House‘ (1929), ‘The Jazz Fool‘ (1929), ‘Just Mickey‘ (1930) and ‘The Barnyard Concert‘ (1930).
Something has happened however, for now Mickey and the gang are not performing for their own fun or at the barnyard, but they are giving a concert in a large theater. It thus predates similar concert cartoons like ‘The Band Concert (1935), Bugs Bunny’s ‘Rhapsody Rabbit‘ (1946), and Tom & Jerry’s ‘The Cat Concerto‘ (1947), introducing several piano and conductor gags.
This is one of those rare Disney cartoons in which the music performed can be unmistakably identified as jazz (in the earlier ‘The Jazz Fool’ this is not the case, despite the cartoon’s name). In fact, the cartoon is one great rendering of the St. Louis Blues (and not ‘Blue Rhythm’, a composition also popular in 1931, and recorded by Fletcher Henderson and Mills Blue Rhythm Band).
W.C. Handy’s classic song is first performed by Mickey on the piano, borrowing some tricks from Chico Marx. Then it is sung by Minnie, followed by some scatting by the both of them. Then Mickey and Minnie leave the stage, the curtain opens to reveal a big band, to which Mickey returns to conduct. And finally the blues is performed by Mickey on the clarinet, imitating bandleader Ted Lewis, complete with the entertainer’s typical top hat.
Minnie’s blues singing resembles contemporary female vaudeville blues singers (e.g. Gertrude Lawrence, Ethel Levey and Victoria Spivey) and the pig trumpeter performs in the growling jungle style of Bubber Miley, who was a trumpeter in Duke Ellington’s band. Mickey shows to be an all round entertainer, performing as a stride pianist, a scat singer, a conductor and a clarinetist. Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow, on the other hand, are clearly a percussionist and flutist, respectively, roles they would also have in ‘The Band Concert‘ (1935), the greatest of Mickey’s concert cartoons. Also featured in Mickey’s band is a dog who may or may not be Pluto, and who plays the trombone, disturbing Mickey while doing so.
Blue Rhythm is a great cartoon, from the opening scene, in which Mickey casts a huge shadow on the curtains to the grand finale in which the excited performance makes the stage collapse. This cartoon may have few gags, it is a delightful ode to music, and to jazz in particular.
Watch ‘Blue Rhythm’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 31
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey Steps Out
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Fishin’ Around
‘Blue Rhythm’ is available on the DVD ‘Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in black and white’
Director: Walt Disney
Release Date: April 5, 1930
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
While other studios, like Walter Lantz and the Max Fleischer drew inspiration from jazz, and while Warner Bros. could draw from an extensive music catalog, in the early sound days Walt Disney turned to (copyright-free) folk songs and classical music.
After ‘The Opry House‘ (1929) and ‘Just Mickey‘, Mickey’s concert career reaches new heights in ‘The Barnyard concert’. In this highly enjoyable cartoon Mickey conducts a barnyard orchestra in Franz von Suppé’s overture to ‘Dichter und Bauer’. There’s one throwaway gag looking all the way back to his breakthrough cartoon ‘Steamboat Willie‘ (1928),in which Mickey torments some pigs, but most of the cartoon is forward looking.
Indeed ‘The Barnyard Concert’ looks like a blueprint for ‘The Band Concert‘ (1935), in which many of the gags introduced here are improved to perfection. The cartoon features no dialogue, whatsoever, but is full of clever sight gags.
Unfortunately, at this stage the animators still had problems with Mickey’s eyes: in one close-up in particular they are placed awkwardly in Mickey’s face.
Watch ‘The Barnyard Concert’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 17
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Just Mickey
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Cactus Kid
‘The Barnyard Concert’ is available on the DVD ‘Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White Volume Two’
Director: Walt Disney
Release Date: October 15, 1929
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Horse Horsecollar
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘The Jazz Fool’ opens with Mickey playing the organ on a tilt car, which says ‘Mickey’s Big Road Show’, followed by a crowd of animals.
When settled down, Mickey produces a piano out of nowhere, and performs a mildly jazzy stride tune on it. We also watch Horace Horsecollar without his usual yoke performing some drumming to Mickey’s organ tune.
This is Mickey’s second piano concerto cartoon (after ‘The Opry House‘ from seven months earlier), and thus contains some new gags involving piano playing. Mickey severely mistreats the instrument, even spanking it, so, unsurprisingly, the piano takes revenge in the end. The music can hardly be called jazz, however, even though it contains some nice stride piano. It would take two years before Mickey would turn to real jazz, in ‘Blue Rhythm‘ (1931).
As one may have noticed ‘The Jazz Fool’ is one of those early plotless Mickey Mouse shorts. However, there’s plenty of action, and Mickey’s piano performance is still entertaining today. Nevertheless, Mickey would turn to the violin in his next concert cartoon ‘Just Mickey‘ (1930).
Watch ‘The Jazz Fool’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 12
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey’s Choo-Choo
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Jungle Rhythm
Director: Wilfred Jackson
Release Date: August 28, 1929
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Mickey’s Follies’ is the first Mickey Mouse film with his own name in the title – a clear indication that the mouse himself now was star enough to sell his own cartoons by name only.
In ‘Mickey’s Follies’ Mickey and his friends are giving a concert on the barnyard. First we see five dancing ducks, then a rather tough ‘French Apache dance’ between a rooster and a hen, followed by a pig singing in an ugly operatic voice. This pig is probably the first character in animation history to be funny because of a typical voice.
Highlight, of course, is Mickey himself performing his own theme song, titled ‘Minnie’s Yoo Hoo!’. This theme song clearly is the raison d’être of the cartoon, and it is even announced as such. No doubt this song was introduced as part of Mickey’s merchandising – and meant to be sold as sheet music, being the first Disney song to do so. An instrumental version of ‘Minnie’s Yoo Hoo!’ would indeed become Mickey’s theme song and accompany the intro’s of many Mickey Mouse cartoons to follow. ‘Minnie’s Yoo Hoo!’ was Disney’s first hit song, and the start of a long tradition, which hasn’t ended yet, as manifested by the huge hit ‘Let It Go’ from ‘Frozen’ (2013). Disney’s attention for merchandizing made him a lot of money, and allowed him to invest more money in his cartoons than his competitors, enabling him to maintain the lead in the animation film world throughout the 1930’s.
Unfortunately, the cartoon’s focus on Mickey’s song makes it rather one-dimensional and dull. It’s an early example of a Disney song-and-dance routine cartoon, one of the first of seemingly countless such cartoons the studio produced between 1929 and 1931.
‘Mickey’s Follies’ is Disney’s second serious attempt at lip synch, after ‘The Karnival Kid’. Mickey sings much more than in the former cartoon, and the all too literal mouth movements give him many awkward facial expressions. Later the animators would learn to tone down the mouth movements, keeping Mickey’s face more consistent without losing the illusion of speech.
‘Mickey’s Follies’ marks the director’s debut of Wilfred Jackson, who had joined the Disney Studio as an assistant animator in April 1928. He was the first to replace Walt himself as a director. Jackson would have a long career at Disney’s studio: he directed his last film, ‘Lady and the Tramp’ in 1955, 26 years later. He retired in October 1961.
Watch ‘Mickey’s Follies’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 10
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Karnival Kid
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey’s Choo-Choo
Director: Don Patterson
Release Date: November 20, 1954
Stars: Woody Woodpecker
Rating: ★
Review:
In ‘Convict Concerto’ Woody Woodpecker is a piano tuner, who’s ordered by a gangster to play the piano continuously, while he hides inside the piano.
Consequently, during the rest of the cartoon we hear Woody play the Hungarian Rhapsody by Franz Liszt. This is the only interesting aspect of this cartoon…
‘Convict Concerto’ was the last of fifteen cartoons Don Patterson directed for Walter Lantz during 1952-1954. None of his cartoons were interesting enough to become classics, with ‘Convict Concerto’ being particularly bad. So he is all but forgotten now. He was replaced by Tex Avery, who, in contrast, was already an animation classic at the time.
Watch ‘Convict Concerto’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Woody Woodpecker cartoon No. 57
To the previous Woody Woodpecker cartoon: Fine Feathered Frenzy
To the next Woody Woodpecker cartoon: Helter Shelter
‘Convict Concerto’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection Volume 2’
Director: Dick Lundy
Release Date: June 16, 1947
Stars: Wally Walrus
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Overture to William Tell’ was the second of three Musical Miniatures, a short-lived series similar to ‘Swing Symphonies’, but based on classical music instead of jazz.
In this one Wally Walrus stars in his very own cartoon as a conductor conducting an extraordinarily sleepy orchestra in a concert hall. The main gag involves a horsefly, which looks like a miniature horse with wings.
‘Overture to William Tell’ is better than the erratic ‘Musical Moments from Chopin‘, the first of the Musical Miniatures. But still it’s only moderately inspired, and pales when compared to that other concert cartoon using the same music by Gioachino Rossini, ‘The Band Concert‘ (1935).
Watch ‘Overture to William Tell’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Osvaldo Cavandoli
Release Date: 1991
Stars: La Linea
Rating: ★★
Review:
Trazom, A.W. Is W.A. Mozart spelled backwards and it’s Cavandoli’s hommage to the composer.
We watch La Linea dressed like an 18th century composer playing Mozart’s K545 sonata on the grand piano. Meanwhile he encounters several animals and people.
Unfortunately, the cartoon is slow, repetitive and rather unfunny. La Linea’s irresistible voice is hardly heard and this cartoon lacks the brazen humor of the earlier entries. And it completely pales when compared to classic piano concerto cartoons like ‘Rhapsody Rabbit‘ (1946) or ‘The Cat Concerto‘ (1947).
‘Trazom, A.W.’ is available on the DVD ‘La Linea 3’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: September 16, 1950
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
Only a year after Chuck Jones’ Bugs Bunny cartoon ‘Long-Haired Hare‘ the Hollywood Bowl is visited by cartoon characters again in ‘Tom and Jerry in The Hollywood Bowl’.
This short is Tom & Jerry’s second concert cartoon (the first being ‘The Cat Concerto‘ from 1947). This time Tom is a conductor, conducting an orchestra of cats in Johann Strauss Jr.’s overture to ‘Die Fledermaus’. Jerry wants to conduct, too, but Tom doesn’t allow him. This leads to a battle between the two with a great finale in which Jerry makes the complete orchestra disappear, so Tom has to play all the instruments himself. Jerry, who conducts him shares the applause with an exhausted Tom, before the cat vanishes into a hole, too.
During the complete cartoon the feud between the two conductors is perfectly timed to the music. ‘Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl’ is not as good as ‘The Cat Concerto’, but still very funny. Its only drawback are the designs on Tom and Jerry, which both look poorer than usual, looking forward to the leaner designs of their later cartoons.
Watch ‘Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 52
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Safety Second
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: The Framed Cat
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: June 25, 1949
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
Bugs Bunny is singing nearby a villa, where a huge opera singer, called Giovanni Jones, is practicing.
The singer is heavily disturbed by Bugs’s performance and without arguing destroys our hero’s banjo, his harp and his tuba. Only then Bugs is prompted into war, which he reserves for the opera singer’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl.
What follows are great blackout gags featuring a string of opera tunes, with Bugs as ‘Leopold’ as a major highlight. This impersonation is an obvious reference to star conductor Leopold Stokowski, famous for conducting ‘Fantasia’ (1940). Bugs destroys the conductor’s baton, to direct with his hands only, like Stokowski does. From now on he controls the singer almost like a puppeteer. Bugs finally destroys his opponent by making him sing a ridiculously long high note, which tears the complete bowl down.
With cartoons like ‘Long-Haired Hare’ director Chuck Jones really came into his own: it shows Jones’ attitude to Bugs Bunny, who, in Jones’s cartoons, is only a misschief when provoked. Giovanni Jones is one of Bugs Bunny’s particularly large adversaries, following The Crusher (‘Rabbit Punch‘, 1948), and the warehouse manager in ‘Hare Conditioned‘ (1945).
‘Long-Haired Hare’ also shows Jones’ love for high culture, like opera. For instance, we can clearly detect a painting by Roussau le douanier decorating the opera singer’s villa. Jones’s love for opera would lead to two of his most famous and best cartoons, ‘The Rabbit of Seville‘ (1950) and ‘What’s Opera, doc?‘ (1958), which also feature Bugs Bunny.
In 1950, the Hollywood Bowl would be visited by cartoon characters again, when Tom & Jerry both tried to conduct in ‘Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl‘.
Watch ‘Long-Haired Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 61
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Bowery Bugs
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Knights Must Fall
Director: Hawley Pratt
Release Date: May 25, 1966
Stars: The Pink Panther, The Little Guy
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In ‘Pink, Plunk, Plink’ the Pink Panther spoils a performance of Beethoven’s fifth symphony by trying to play his own theme music, much to dismay of the conductor (the little guy).
The Pink Panther finally succeeds to replace the conductor, but there appears only to be one man in the audience, Henry Mancini, composer of the Pink Panther’s theme music, himself (live action footage).
‘Pink, Plunk, Plink’ is not one of the best concert cartoons ever made, but the little guy’s frustrations are wonderfully animated.
Watch ‘Pink, Plunk, Plink’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Gene Deitch
Release Date: December 1962
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★
Review:
Tom chases Jerry into an opera house, with remarkably unfunny results, making ‘Carmen Get It’ probably the worst of all concert cartoons.
This is a sad irony, because Tom & Jerry are also responsible for one of the all time best: ‘The Cat Concerto‘ (1947).
‘Carmen get it’ was the last of the Gene Deitch Tom & Jerries, a poor and unfunny series of cartoons, which during their short existence never came even near the quality of the original ones by Hanna and Barbera. Gene Deitch had outlasted its welcome within one year and moved over to produce cartoons for Paramount, directing a.o. Popeye and Krazy Cat cartoons.
Tom & Jerry were already revived once again the next year, by Chuck Jones, whose Tom & Jerry cartoons were to be a great improvement on Gene Deitch’s ones, albeit nowhere near the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons…
Watch an excerpt from ‘Carmen Get It’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 127
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Buddies Thicker than Water
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Penthouse Mouse
Director: Walt Disney
Release Date: March 6, 1930
Stars: Mickey Mouse
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
This is a very aptly titled short: we only see Mickey, there are no other stars or characters.
Mickey is the sole performer in his fourth concert cartoon (after ‘The Opry House‘, ‘Mickey’s Follies‘ and ‘The Jazz Fool‘, all from 1929). This time he’s playing the violin, presenting his reading of the fifth Hungarian dance by Johannes Brahms, Träumerei by Robert Schumann (which makes him cry) and, as an encore, the finale from ‘Overture William Tell‘ by Gioachino Rossini.
The whole setting is such that we’ve got the feeling we’re part of the audience ourselves, and that the man with the mocking laugh is among us. Later, the Warner Bros. studio would expand upon this idea of cartoon figures and audience interplay.
‘Just Mickey’ contains some good facial expression animation of Mickey, besides some great shadow effects during his rendering of ‘Träumerei‘. Moreover, the hand movements in this short are remarkably convincing. It is an early showcase of Walt Disney’s ambition to improve the art of animation. Being the first Mickey Mouse cartoon after Ub Iwerks’s departure in January 1930, it shows the studio could do very well without him…
Watch ‘Just Mickey’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 16
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Wild Waves
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Barnyard Concert
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 